Chinese Internet and technology conglomerate LeEco plans to make their online platform LeMall as the go-to destination for all entertainment needs.

In an interaction with ETtech's Vikas SN, LeEco India COO Atul Jain said LeMall will offer both content subscriptions and entertainment related hardware devices for users in India. He also talks about LeEco's upcoming offline platform LePar and their plans to expand its subscription service to consumers in India. Edited excerpts -

How has LeMall's journey been in 2016?

We introduced LeMall in India in June this year. So it's been about 5-6 months, but LeMall is already contributing about 30%-35% of our business in the television segment.

It is definitely one of the key channels for us in the future and should be contributing a good chunk of our overall business next year.

We have targeted India and USA as priority markets outside our home market China, since about two-thirds of the world's population is living across these 3 markets.

Going forward, we are bringing in the O2O (Online-to-offline) model into India with LePar, the offline platform that we are setting up in the country that will benefit LeMall since both will be able to interact with each other.

For instance, consumers can try out our high ticket items like televisions on LePar before buying it on LeMall. While the sale point can be both the channels, our preferred sale point is LeMall, since it helps us in faster inventory rollout while reducing several costs like warehousing costs, logistics and lesser inventory requirements among others.

We are also bringing in things like richer product descriptions, exchange offers, ease of payments. We also have a concept called UP2U (Up to You) where the user gives us feedback that helps us redefine and redesign our products. So LeMall is not just a sales platform for us, it is a platform to continuously interact with our users.

In addition, we are bringing more product offerings to LeMall to make it a destination for entertainment related technology needs for all users in the country.

When you mention entertainment related technology needs, what does that comprise of?

It will comprise of content subscriptions and entertainment related devices. For instance, if you want to watch any particular type of content, you will be able to go to LeMall and subscribe to content.

Similarly, you will be able to buy entertainment devices, audio accessories or screens (mobile phones and television). It will also offers devices like virtual reality headsets and other cutting edge products in the segment.

Your devices are also available on e-commerce platforms like Flipkart and Amazon, how are you differentiating LeMall from them?

For us, E-commerce platforms will remain as multiple channels from which users can buy, therefore prices will be the same across all channels.

But it's much more easier for me to do lot of value adds for our users on LeMall since it is under our control. For instance, my explanation for a device could be much better or I could show demonstrations in a much stronger way.

What is your content strategy for India market?

We are focusing on partnerships for content and already have partnerships with Eros & YuppTV. Our current content mix comprises of Bollywood, news and information related channels.

We are currently looking at getting some India-specific content via partnerships with India-specific content players. We have a 40-50 member team that works on the content side.

Are you looking at content production as well?

That would be phase 2 in our plan and can happen in the future. We already do that in China via Le Vision Pictures.

Do you plan to expand your membership program to other devices?

We do eventually plan to enable other users buy our content subscription package in the future, but the focus over the next few months is to strengthen our service and consolidate our position before we get into these different modes of distribution.

You earlier mentioned the offline platform LePar. What's going to be your strategy for that platform in India?

Our offline platform will include offline stores and exclusive zones within shops. We will start commissioning LePars from Q1 2017. We are starting from Tier 1 cities like Delhi, Bengaluru and Mumbai and then gradually go to Tier-2 cities.

We have setup in-house content delivery networks (CDNs) in Delhi and Mumbai that are already operational. We plan to setup eight more CDNs in India as per our current plan and may scale it up further depending on our requirements.

Are you looking at expanding your Internet connected device portfolio as well?

Our entire focus is on entertainment, so we might look if some entertainment related opportunities comes up. But we are not looking at devices that either measure your health or fitness.

For instance, we started work on electric vehicles last year. This is not because we want to be an automobile company, but we realized that people spend 2-3 hrs in commute in big cities across the world.

For us, car is an Internet box wherein users can sit in a driverless vehicle and press the navigation button to go to destination by itself and then spend those 2-3 hrs using the entertainment inside the car.